While much has been written about the representation of sex workers in iconic Western artworks, such as Manet’s 'Olympia' and Picasso’s 'Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,' less attention has been given to sex workers as creators, models, and patrons. This lecture aims to shift the focus to these overlooked figures. Many artists’ models remain undocumented, but some are known to have been sex workers.

For instance, at least three women depicted in Caravaggio’s paintings were sex workers. What do they reveal of the lived realities of sex work in sixteenth-century Rome? How did sex workers leverage art and literature for self-promotion, as seen in the memoirs of eighteenth-century courtesans like Peg Plunkett and Harriette Wilson, or in the patronage of nineteenth-century grande horizontale Louise Valtesse de la Bigne, or in Camille Waring’s groundbreaking doctoral research on sex workers’s photographic self-portraits in online spaces (2023) as acts of self-representation and resistance?

The sex worker can take myriad forms, including cam worker, hostess, porn actor, pole dancer, dominatrix, full-service sex worker — spanning a broad spectrum of labour. One example is documented in Sidsel Meineche Hansen’s video 'Maintenancer' (2018), made in collaboration with filmmaker Therese Henningsen, which examines the growing post-human sex industry, focusing on the maintenance of sex dolls at a German brothel. Another is foregrounded in Roxana Halls’s painting ‘Dressing Room,’ which depicts the concealed labour that occurs pre-performance in the liminal space between the showgirl's public and domestic sphere.

Feminism’s fraught relationship with sex work was interrogated by Simone de Beauvoir in the 1940s, by performance artist and activist Carol Leigh (creator of Scarlot Harlot) and others in the 1970s, and later by liberal movements in the 1990s that paved the way for contemporary sex worker activism. Through the intersection of visual art and activism, sex worker artists have argued for the decriminalisation and destigmatisation of sex work.

Examples include candid shots by queer photographer Celeste the Hooker; painter Caroline Coon’s ‘brothel series,’ begun in 1987; Lauren Bowcott’s unfiltered painted portraits of sex workers that celebrate empowerment whilst preserving anonymity; the performance art of former porn star Annie Sprinkle; the Heaux History Project founded by Erica Kane which revives the forgotten histories of Black, brown and indigenous sex work; as well as key exhibitions like ‘Decriminalised futures’ (ICA, London, 2022) which highlighted the importance of an intersectional approach to sex work to reflect experiences of disability, of women of colour, working class women, the queer gaze, trans workers, and so on.

This lecture will explore this convoluted history, highlighting the fraught relationship between sex-worker as muse, activist and maker, and ultimately arguing that It's only by centering sex workers that we can counter existing narratives and conceive of a sex worker gaze.

We are committed to making our sessions as accessible as possible. If you are unable to pay the full amount for this class, please reach out to us via email at [email protected] and we will provide you with a discount code.